If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Congratulations. I've only ever skimmed your work (never enough time to do more) but without doubt well deserved.

To view is human, to comment is divine.
"Be not afraid" - John Paul II
"The Christian way has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found to be hard and left untried" - GK Chesterton.
Current AAR: Stories of King Sean CK2 4.1
Completed AAR: In Memory of France EU2
View my full AAR list at The InkwellMy library and My blog
Ask not what AARland can do for you, but what you can do for AARland.

Thanks, I'm very honoured! It's enormously gratifying to know that ones work is not only read but appreciated, and while I haven't had time to read as many AARs as I would have liked, I see that there are many works of great talent and ambition out there, so I realize I had stiff competition and will have a hard time choosing my successor.

I didn't immediatly notice this because I have a direct link to the HOI AAR forum, so I rarely come here. I see now that that must change...

About me, I'm a 35-year old half-swedish half-spanish father of one, the on these pages infamous Yogi jr (toddler) who is my eternal excuse for tardy updates. An ex-business administrator, I'm now in the proccess of transmogrifying into a teacher, if possible in history (and that's my other excuse). Luckily I only require four to six hours sleep per night, so I can sometimes get something done at night (which is why my posts usually appear around 24:00 CET).

The Fu Manchu AAR is my tribute to pulp, from Sherlock Holmes to James Bond. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself had no respect for his own brilliant work, but for some reason, his readers kept bugging him for updates . The Fu Manchu stories, by Sax Roehmer began to appear in 1912 with the short story "The Zayat Kiss" and were in the best pulp tradition of the time.

I had heard my dad speak about the Fu Manchu movies he saw as a kid in Madrid in the 30s and 40s, but the immediate inspiration for the AAR came when I followed a link from the The Page of Fu Manchu to a Fu Manchu chronology. What I didn't notice at first was that it was an external link, to a site called the Wold Newton Universe. So imagine my surprise when I began to see all kinds of other well known fictional heroes emerging in the chronology, beginning with Sherlock Holmes himself (who by the way is the uncle of Sir Denis Nayland Smith). Later I learnt about this composite universe created by Philip José Farmer and I had found the theme for my AAR. To combine some great heroes of pulp and pulp tribute with that fascinating arch-villain Fu Manchu - irresistible!

"The Italians have a saying, Lemon, 'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.' And, although they've never won a war or mass-produced a decent car, in this area they are correct." - Jack in 30 Rock

Well, my week in the sun is over, and I must say I had a really hard time choosing a WritAAR of the Week, because there is so much talent out there.

First of all, while I did have a look at the AAR forums of other games than HOI, these could never recieve the same attention as the HOI AARs, where I'm a regular. So non-HOI writers never had a fighting chance, and for this I apologise.

Second, my preferences for AARs are of the worked-through high ambition kind. So while there are many excellent (and funny!) AARs in other styles, my choice was always going to be biased in that direction.

In the end, I have chosen a most excellent writer, whose latest AAR I feel is not only up there with the best, but also is about a mod that has taken HOI enjoyment to new heights for me - the magnificent TGW mod, for the creation of which he bears no little responsibility.

And so, without any more ado, let me introduce to you the John Keegan of Alternate History WW1, the TGW Field Marshall, the new WritAAR of the Week - Allenby!

"The Italians have a saying, Lemon, 'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.' And, although they've never won a war or mass-produced a decent car, in this area they are correct." - Jack in 30 Rock

To view is human, to comment is divine.
"Be not afraid" - John Paul II
"The Christian way has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found to be hard and left untried" - GK Chesterton.
Current AAR: Stories of King Sean CK2 4.1
Completed AAR: In Memory of France EU2
View my full AAR list at The InkwellMy library and My blog
Ask not what AARland can do for you, but what you can do for AARland.

Thank you so kindly, Yogi, for passing on this renowned accolade to me. I have recently found writing my AAR to be as much a matter of enjoyment as it is of necessity, and have a sincere hope that it should increase in popularity in the near future, for I would say that I have worked quite considerably to ensure that it retains a high quality, and always find joy when readers take the time to lend their thoughts on my writing. I thank those who give their congratulations.

Why my life should be of interest to you esteemed AAR writers is a mystery to me - I was born in a shed in 1983, my mother was a great trapeze artist working with a local circus, and my father was the world's most renowned airship captain with a severe speech impediment and an insatiable penchant for drowning hamsters in honey. My birth was difficult for my mother, who sustained some painful injuries during the ordeal, and she decided to scar my face upon leaving the hospital with a rusted fork in retribution. My father was reluctant to sanction such action, but felt that such an impressive disfigurement would allow me to look menacing in my later years. My upbringing was tough. In my first few years, I was fed exclusively on carrots, rotting meat and wood shavings in a diet that my parents later insisted was beneficial for my 'standards'. In the meantime, I had the luxury of finding amusement in two toys: six broken Lego bricks of the same colour and a Stretch Armstrong doll whose entire body remained stiff, almost like an army officer, an austere combination which conditioned my mind to expecting only the most simple things from life. My father made sure that I was well educated and unscrupulously divided my learning between the history of Madagascan vanilla plantations, the exact order of battle of the British and Franco-Spanish fleets at Trafalgar and the mechanical workings of the Rubik's Cube, although he put special emphasis on Madagascan vanilla plantations. And Trafalgar. And the Rubik's Cube. By the age of five, I was able to recite the displacement, speed, armament and captain of every ship that fought at Trafalgar, and was compelled to do so every Tuesday afternoon by my father, with slight mistakes being punished with a fierce birching. My early school years combined joy with underlying foreboding - I made few peers, and other, bigger children would pick on me because I was an 'oddball'. I did not tolerate their antagonism - my father would punch me hard and tell me to stand up to them, threatening to disown me if I did not show enough backbone. Sure enough, I retaliated - I confronted one of my tormentors and trapped him in the caretaker's room, and using a spade, I struck him hard on the head, sending him sprawling to the ground. I did not stop there - anger, built up in me for years, was suddenly unleashed on the victim, and I struck him again and again, battering the limp, twitching corpse, turning his upper body into a pinky-reddish paste. I cleaned up the remains and dumped them in the local river, and then claimed to be ignorant of the person's wherebouts. Presumed to be missing, investigations got nowhere, and my ability to break thick wooden planks with my forehead enabled me to earn the respect of tough kids and teachers alike. Yet I was academic too - my father ensured that my bedroom was Spartan in style and layout, consisting of a simple bed, a desk and chair, a small wardrobe and a photograph of Richard Nixon on the wall, signed by Gerald Ford. I would be locked in my room for hours every day, with books supplied through a specially installed postbox on the door. Nixon would give encouragement, talking to me from his unassailable vantage point on the wall. Dedication to my education ensured that I was able to achieve more than 100% in every exam that I took, but my demanding parents were only partly satisfied, and upon getting 463% in my Quantum Mechanics exam, I was given the honour of being allowed to enter the house through the front door and not via the sewerage system. Now, I am twenty-one years of age, and am allowed to wear items of clothing other than the potato sack given to me by my beloved grandmotherfather many years ago, as well as other opportunities of freedom and liberty. Yet I write my AAR because I have no choice - my pet rabbit, Fluffy, is being held hostage, and I have been warned that if my updates are not of sufficient length, or do not attract a necessary number of replies, he shall be shot, placed on a stick, and used as a makeshift toilet brush. That, gentlemen, is my life.

I shall spend the next week relentlessly looking at various AARs on these fora, and shall come up with a suitable winner this Sunday.